The Knight's Book
by Antiform
Summary: Seifer's only real secret is his favorite book series. Rating based on one f-bomb.


I own a few copies of the game, but obviously not any rights.

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><p>By the time of his first clear memory, <em>The Sorceress' Knight<em>, was his favorite movie. Whenever the orphanage had movie night, Seifer would vote to watch it. The other children grew tired of it, with the cheesy dialogue and dated special effects, but young Seifer Almasy never cared about that. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but the romance of it made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Maybe his parents had had an adventure and fallen in love? Then they'd had him and, because they were adventurous, ended up going to war and never coming back. Surely that was why he had no family.

Before long, he was pretending to be a knight and challenging all of the monsters—disguised as other children, of course—to fights to the death. It was during this time that the other children decided he was a bully. He couldn't hold back in a fight, not when the life of his sorceress was on the line! Eventually, he decided that, if that's what they thought of him, it must be true.

He grew bitter of the relationships the other children had. Sis was great to everyone, but she was particularly close to whiny Squall. The others mostly stuck together. Seifer was the odd one out, he thought.

Even once Sis disappeared, Zell and Quisty got adopted, and the remaining children were sent to live at Garden, Seifer felt alone. His former almost-siblings seemed to forget about him entirely, so he moved on as well.

It was shortly after arriving at Balamb Garden that Seifer met his two best friends. Fuujin and Raijin had been sent from an orphanage in Galbadia that had reached capacity. The three clicked almost instantly and were practically inseparable from then on.

The brightest and fastest learning of the trio, Seifer very nearly graduated early. It was a combination of his new contempt for authority and not wanting to leave behind his old friends that kept him from following orders during that first test. It became habit after that.

Seifer _liked_ spending afternoons studying with his friends. They tended to choose days when most other students were off training or goofing off to his the library. It was a secret that the librarian kept that they often left with stacks of books on every subject and a few novels as well. It was a _very_ little known fact that Seifer Almasy loved reading. History, politics, magic texts of all ages. Only two people, excluding himself, knew his favorite series of novels.

It was on a particularly busy day for the cafeteria, which had just gotten in a new, rather large shipment of hot dogs, that Seifer found himself browsing the library alone. The Balamb Garden library had never been known for its stock of fiction, but there had always been a small section devoted to important pieces of literature, both Galbadian and Estharian, and a few popular novels.

A new book series had been started the year before. The first book was a breakaway hit with Galbadian women, and the second book had just been released. Someone in the library must have heard that it was popular, because they ordered a copy each of the first two books.

Seifer hadn't really been looking for anything in particular. He'd simply decided that, rather than fight the crowds for a stupid hot dog, he'd take a look around. That was when he saw the new books. _The Sorceress' Knight_, they said, in small letters on the spine. The first even had a caption: "Based on the classic movie!"

Seifer took a look around. No one was around, so he took the chance and checked out both books. He barely acknowledged the librarian's confused face as she checked the books out for him.

It didn't take long to find out just why she'd been confused, though Seifer wondered why he hadn't figured it out simply from the cover art. They were romance novels, set a few hundred years ago. Sure, the books also had adventures, so there was plenty of action, both in the field and in the sheets.

Raijin returned to their shared dorm room to find his bunkmate engrossed in a pretty heavy scene, the first of the many sex scenes in the series. He knew better than to make a big deal of his best friend's reading choice, though he was able to get a few good-natured jokes in before the blond reminded him that _his_ favorite books were written for children, so he could shut his fucking mouth.

They _both_ decided never to tell Fuu about their guilty pleasures.

When the Second Sorceress War broke out, and the trio found themselves in the thick of it, Seifer, in his more lucid moments, decided that there was no romance to it at all. Maybe some time in the past, when things weren't so complicated and _global_, knights had romance and adventures. That war was not one of them. The war that took his parents had not been one of them.

He honestly didn't remember much from the war, and he didn't know if it was because of the magic and the manipulation or simply his brain blocking it all out. He remembered being angry sometimes, driven in all the wrong ways at other times. Edea thought it was a good thing, perhaps, that he couldn't remember much, though the courts declared that it was suspicious. In the end, no one could be sure who had been controlled directly and who hadn't. Seifer surely didn't know. His best friends swore he hadn't been the same.

He wasn't the same after, either. Disillusioned, he thought to abandon his dreams of romance and adventure as a knight. The only living sorceress left was the ex-girlfriend who had moved on to the perfect new commander of Balamb Garden, after all.

After the trials, Seifer disappeared for a while. Fuujin and Raijin found jobs in Fisherman's Horizon and didn't see him for months until he wandered into town one spring evening. They never asked where he'd been, only if he'd stay.

The three friends stayed there until Edea insisted that they re-enroll. There was a huge argument, with Zell being the most vocal about why they _shouldn't_ return, and Squall, surprisingly, insisting that they _should._

Raijin was particularly excided about returning. He'd never been the smartest of the three, but he certainly had always been the most excited about learning. Fuujin spoke more than usual the day they decided. Though she was fine either way, she wasn't about to let them separate. Still unsure, Seifer agreed to return home.

The condition of their re-enrollment was simple: pass the SeeD exam the following year. If they couldn't, they'd be expelled permanently.

The study sessions behind locked dorm rooms from before the war were no more. The trio was often seen in the library, brushing up on everything from history and strategy to bestiaries and magical theory. When they couldn't be found studying, they were training, making up for the more sedentary lifestyle of FH.

The written exam was given in two groups of about 30 students each. Fuujin and Raijin in the first group, Seifer in the second. It was during his friends' exam that Seifer wandered into the library, intent on getting a quick review in before his own test. He was sitting in a corner desk with a few history books when the librarian approached him.

They'd never _really_ talked before. They'd not even had classes together, but they shared one little secret.

"There's a new one," she told him, before he realized she was there.

He looked up from his notes, confused.

"There's a new one. _The Sorceress' Knight_. It came out while you were gone. It's really good. I think you'll enjoy it." She didn't mention _why_ he was gone, just set the new volume on the desk in front of him and went back to work.

As he left after checking it out, she barely heard his, "Thanks."

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><p>'Sup guys! It's been a long time since I've written anything. I used to RP a lot, and this is based on some headcanons I had while RPing as Seifer years ago. I had an itch to revisit that, so I did. If I'm inspired, maybe I'll write more? I have no idea. If anyone has prompts they'd like filled, you can try me I guess?<p> 


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